Proliferation of networked computers has helped facilitate growth of application-sharing technologies. Application sharing technologies allow geographically disparate users to share images, text and data in an essentially real-time manner. Real-time as used herein refers to synchronized computer-driven events running on two or more networked computers in such a manner that the synchronized events appear to be occurring at the same time to users co-located with the respective computers. Therefore, a real-time event can tolerate synchronization, transmission, and processing delays so long as a user cannot perceive them.
By way of example, an application-sharing environment may be as follows. A medical imaging system, such as a computer axial tomography (CAT) Scan, may generate local display images on a monitor within a hospital. A specialist located outside the hospital may want to view the images as they are generated in order to direct a technician running the imaging system. Ideally, the specialist should have real-time image updates such that the images on the specialist's monitor are appearing essentially at the same time as those on the technician's display so that the specialist can efficiently direct the technician.
Even with today's high bandwidth networks and powerful computing platforms, sharing images in application-sharing environments is problematic. One such problem arises because a typical modern computer image may consist of over a million pixels. In addition, a display on the remote computer should update at a rate sufficient to avoid perceptible screen flicker to a remote user.
Another problem arises because links connecting a host computer to a remote computer may not always consist of the fastest possible technologies. For example, a host sharing images with two remote sites may have to communicate over links of varying bandwidth. For example, the first remote computer may be connected to a high speed Gigabit Ethernet network, while the second remote user is connected by way of a much slower digital subscriber line (DSL) provided by a residential telecommunications provider.
There thus remains a need to improve application sharing technology and in particular sharing of images. A system that allows application sharing environments to operate in a real-time manner using networks and computers that heretofore impeded the sharing of image data is still desirable.